Science
Related: About this forumWait, what? Scientists discover snakes that hunt in packs
A Cuban boa, which scientist Vladimir Dinets says he observed working collaboratively to catch fruit bats
Scientist observes snakes working together to catch fruit bats
Collaborative reptiles catch their prey by hanging from cave ceiling
A scientist from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville has discovered that a species of snake, the Cuban boa, hunts in groups, and through teamwork improve their chances of catching prey.
It's the first time that reptiles have been observed to have been involved in "coordinated hunting," where individual animals take into account the location of others of the same species to maximize their hunting successes.
The study's author, Vladimir Dinets, observed the snakes hunting fruit bats in Cuba. Taking up positions across a cave mouth at dawn and dusk, the individual snakes would position themselves in a way as to improve the odds of the pack making a kill.
"Snakes arriving to the hunting area were significantly more likely to position themselves in the part of the passage where other snakes were already present, forming a 'fence' across the passage and thus more effectively blocking the flight path of the prey, significantly increasing hunting efficiency," the study's abstract states.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/26/americas/cave-snakes-hunt-in-packs-trnd/
brush
(53,788 posts)Im tired of these M'Fing snakes in this M'Fing...........
shenmue
(38,506 posts)MFM008
(19,816 posts)"Why did it have to be snakes"...... Indiana Jones...
Yo_Mama
(8,303 posts)That's a higher bar.
It may simply be that other snakes are hanging in the better places.
Like going fishing - people will congregate in the better spots with more fish, but they may all be singles, and indeed competing.